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Dec 8th - 9th (2nd wave/winter storm discussion)


Zelocita Weather

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There have been times when it hasn't. February 2005 had at least one system where it stayed all snow on the shore even on an east wind. You need a deep enough cold air mass, and an ocean temp preferably in the low 40s or below. In early December, the water temps are still quite warm, so that's extremely difficult, more so than later into Jan, Feb, or even March.

Hey, their are exceptions to every rule. Now the north shore of Long Island is a different story. The combination of elevation and essentially being inland is a more conducive setup for snow, even in marginal air masses.

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The south shore can do well when we have a big -NAO and some blocking, such as Boxing Day. But those setups are few and far between. Most of our setups are marginal, such as Monday. The ocean temperature could have been in the 30's and Monday would have still been mostly rain east of the city.

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The south shore can do well when we have a big -NAO and some blocking, such as Boxing Day. But those setups are few and far between. Most of our setups are marginal, such as Monday. The ocean temperature could have been in the 30's and Monday would have still been mostly rain east of the city.

How's boxing day an example of SE winds? You said before that east winds means rain for the coast "every time", it's simply not true. Point is that water temps do matter but you'd obviously need an ideal setup for snow.
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This is why I laugh when people say that lower SST help keep the coast snow. Short of the ocean being frozen over it's not going to make any difference.  

 

 

It's a love / hate relationship though because the ocean also helps provide moisture for our enormous storms. I'll take the rains if it means getting larger snowstorms.

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How's boxing day an example of SE winds? You said before that east winds means rain for the coast "every time", it's simply not true. Point is that water temps do matter but you'd obviously need an ideal setup for snow.

Boxing Day is an example of an ideal situation where it paid to be closer to the coast. I can't think of any events offhand where SE winds produced major snow for the coast, particularly the south shore of LI. I'm not saying it's never happened but it's extremely rare.

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Boxing Day is an example of an idea situation where it paid to be closer to the coast. I can't think of any events offhand where SE winds produced major snow for the coast, particularly the south shore of LI. I'm not saying it's never happened but it's extremely rare.

Lol, we're pretty much on the same page here. I'm just saying that some of our east wind coastal snow events wouldn't of happened if SST's were a little higher (this is especially true for Boston).
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The south shore can do well when we have a big -NAO and some blocking, such as Boxing Day. But those setups are few and far between. Most of our setups are marginal, such as Monday. The ocean temperature could have been in the 30's and Monday would have still been mostly rain east of the city.

My area is among the least snowy within the Tri-State, but it's not as if it's a huge rarity to have big snow events here. The 1/27/11 event, 12/19/09, 3/1/09, etc events were not in huge blocking regimes and my area and places near the shore were among the highest totals.

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Boxing Day is an example of an idea situation where it paid to be closer to the coast. I can't think of any events offhand where SE winds produced major snow for the coast, particularly the south shore of LI. I'm not saying it's never happened but it's extremely rare.

SE winds do not produce major snow for anyone in our area.

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SE winds do not produce major snow for anyone in our area.

What's considered major? If we're talking warning criteria or higher, I can think of plenty of systems that were rain at the shore and warning criteria snowfall NW of I-287/I-87.

 

The JP township for the greater tri-state area seems to be Hewitt, NJ. On more than one occasion it's been raining in West Milford and snowing on top of the mountain in Hewitt. Vernon does quite well also. Western Passaic County seems to have the perfect combination of being close enough to the coast and high enough in elevation to JP in most scenarios.

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What's considered major? If we're talking warning criteria or higher, I can think of plenty of systems that were rain at the shore and warning criteria snowfall NW of I-287/I-87.

You'd need a storm west of you to get SE winds. You're talking about storms that were inside the benchmark.
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12z GFS flips NW areas to snow by hour 66 with plenty of precip to come. Just about everyone flips to snow or a mix at hour 69 with the 850mb freezing line south of the city. As much as 0.25" probably falls as frozen NW of I-95 Saturday morning. We all end as some mood flakes though. Clown maps show 1-3" just NW of I-95 and 4-6" for the Poconos.

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That was in February and March and/or with a lighter less influential east wind. So, there are TWO differences from what we have at hand, time of year, and lightness of wind.

WX/PT

I was going to mention the December 1992 storm that had east winds and it was mostly rain from the start...The March 1993 storm had temps around 30 at the start of the storm...water temps in December are nearly 10 degrees warmer than late February and March...the December 26th 1969 KU event changed to heavy rain in the city at dawn...I'm not sure what the wind direction was for that storm...December 24th 1966 managed to stay below freezing but snow changed to sleet due to the storm tracking very close to the city...

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12z GFS flips NW areas to snow by hour 66 with plenty of precip to come. Just about everyone flips to snow or a mix at hour 69 with the 850mb freezing line south of the city. As much as 0.25" probably falls as frozen NW of I-95 Saturday morning. We all end as some mood flakes though. Clown maps show 1-3" just NW of I-95 and 4-6" for the Poconos.

Hr 72 on the GFS has surface temps to 50 in NYC and in the low 40`s into the Hudson Valley .  

Dont think the surface is colling as fast as  th 850`s are

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Hr 72 on the GFS has surface temps to 50 in NYC and in the low 40`s into the Hudson Valley .  

Dont think the surface is colling as fast as  th 850`s are

Not sure what you're looking at. My zoomed in maps for hour 72 have 850 freezing line running from DC, then south of Philly and off the NJ coast in Ocean County and south of LI. The surface freezing line runs along I-287. It's mostly over by that hour anyway. 

 

GFS_MSLPThickQPF_ne_f72.png?1386172217

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Not sure what you're looking at. My zoomed in maps for hour 72 have 850 freezing line running from DC, then south of Philly and off the NJ coast in Ocean County and south of LI. The surface freezing line runs along I-287. It's mostly over by that hour anyway. 

 

GFS_MSLPThickQPF_ne_f72.png?1386172217

 What surface temps are you seeing  , I cant pull up temps on WB on accu crud- at 72 shows surface temps upper 40`s throughout

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Thru hours 114

 

The darker blue line is the 32 degree isotherm

Accu - is dreadful , has temps in upper 40`s at same time .  

hr 114 hr 120  its still in the upper 20` s just away from the coast they dont get out of the hole

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If that strong WAA push is true, this has the potential to be ugly for inland folks. The surface cold should lock in more than what the GFS shows. At the same time, the 850mb level usually warms faster than what modeling shows. I think that perhaps why the clown maps aren't spitting out much snow is because a lot of what looks like a good front end dump is actually IP/ZR.

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Disagree. The primary is becoming weaker with each run

What are you looking at? At hour 126 the primary is still sub 1000mb and is up into Canada with not much of any coastal to speak of. It never really gets going until it's east of Maine. We get very little precip this run associated with the coastal, it's almost all WAA driven from the primary.

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Disagree. The primary is becoming weaker with each run

What are you looking at? At hour 126 the primary is still sub 1000mb and is up into Canada with not much of any coastal to speak of. It never really gets going until it's east of Maine. We get very little precip this run associated with the coastal, it's almost all WAA driven from the primary.

Based on prior runs the primary is much weaker
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